STACK #147 Jan 2017

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DVD&BD FEATURE

TateTaylor talks about the challenges of bringing the best-selling thriller The Girl on theTrain to the screen. Words Adam Colby W ith its time-jumping structure and multiple narrators, adapting Paula Hawkins’ best- Theroux), who also happens to live in the same street with his new wife, Anna (Rebecca Ferguson). Once he had got his head MEMORIES OF MURDER II F E

CHICK NOIR

Gone Girl (2014) Still the best screen version of a chick noir best-seller, David Fincher’s chilling and darkly funny tale of marital discord boasts a terrific performance from Rosamund Pike as the missing wife. Dark Places (2015) Like Gone Girl , this unsettling thriller was adapted from the thriller by Gillian Flynn and stars Charlize Theron as the now grown-up survivor of a murder spree carried out by her brother when she Femme fatale flicks that play tricks of the mind.

seller The Girl on the Train to the big screen was never going to be easy. And Tate Taylor, best known for dramas such as The Help and Get On Up , admits the book itself even had him flummoxed in the beginning. “It’s kind of embarrassing,” he recalls. “I was really busy and I knew nothing about it. I started reading the manuscript and my partner John was reading it at the same time to decide if I should do this. I took a break after the first 40 pages and said, ‘wow... so this is about a woman with multiple personality disorder. She’s Rachel then she’s Anna, and here’s...’ [And John said] ‘Dumb-ass, those are three people!’ But the point is, you really have to look at those dates in the book and you have to pay attention.” The Girl on the Train tells the story of Rachel Watson (played in the film by Emily Blunt), a

around the complex structure of the novel, the challenge for Taylor was then to find a way into the story. “My way into it was distilling the writing,” he explains. “It was having these three leads who were so broken, and I really enhanced that and really showed what that was like and made it disturbing and raw. I wanted to do things to make everybody a possible suspect. I wanted to just try to always do something to make someone potentially bad.” Unlike the book, the screen version is set in the US rather than the UK, a decision Taylor says predated his coming onboard the project. However, he doesn’t believe the change in setting detracts from the story. “I didn’t think we should shift it back. And once I [had] shot all this cool stuff in heads. I think it serves it more when I decided to keep Emily’s accent because she’s even more isolated and it made me wonder whether she’s not going home because she can’t tell her family. Is she keeping a big secret that she’s a total disaster? I didn’t decide to do it, but I think it works well.” But while Blunt what I like to do best, which is character and the city, I realised it doesn’t matter where you are. The movie is in these women’s

TateTaylor directing Emily Blunt

depressed, alcoholic divorcee who likes to imagine what life must be like for a seemingly perfect couple – Scott and Megan (Luke Evans and Haley Bennett) – whom she spies from her train window every day. When Megan disappears, Rachel decides to look into the case, but her amateur investigation reawakens dark memories from her old life with ex-husband Tom (Justin

was a child.

Every Secret Thing (2014) Based on the novel by Laura Lippman, this brooding crime drama finds jaded detective Elizabeth Banks investigating

the kidnapping of a baby and zeroing on two teenage girls who have just been released from juvie for a similar crime.

I wanted to do things to make everybody a possible suspect

Side Effects (2013) Although not based on

chick noir novel, Steven Soderbergh’s stylish tale

attributes of the character in the book (Rachel is overweight in the novel) wouldn’t be possible. “I could tell there was no way she could gain weight,” he says. “I’ve seen her eat, and she’s like a 14-year-old boy at football practice!” of murder and memory ticks all the right boxes. Rooney Mara is the young woman accused of killing her husband while under the spell of drugs prescribed by her psychiatrist (Catherine Zeta-Jones).

• The Girl on the Train is out on Jan 25

retained the accent, Taylor realised fairly quickly that other

JANUARY 2017

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